Electrosurgical instruments provide advantages over traditional surgical instruments in that they can be used for coagulation and tissue sealing purposes. One such prior art arrangement is known from US2015/223870A1, which describes an endoscopic bipolar forceps including a housing and a shaft, the shaft having an electrosurgical end effector assembly at a distal end thereof, which includes two jaw members for grasping tissue therebetween. Each jaw member is adapted to connect to an electrosurgical energy source, enabling them to affect a tissue seal to tissue held therebetween. A drive assembly is included within the housing for moving the jaw members. A movable handle is also included, such that movement of the handle actuates the drive assembly to move the jaw members relative to each other. A knife channel is included within the end effector configured to allow reciprocation of a knife blade within the knife channel, to allow cutting of tissue.
Other prior art arrangements include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,730,740, 5,104,397, 4,800,880, WO98/14124, US2012/0109186, U.S. Pat. No. 5,352,235, WO2014/074807, U.S. Pat. No. 7,846,161, WO2008/024911, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,776,130, 6,039,733, 6,179,834, 7,131,971, 7,766,910, EP2628459, US2014/0221999, U.S. Pat. No. 7,083,618, US2009/0248020, US2015/0209103, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,797,938 and 7,101,373.